Tameside 'UK heart disease capital'

Tameside in Greater Manchester is the UK's "heart disease capital", a charity has said.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) said people who live in the area are more likely to die from coronary heart disease than anywhere else in the UK.

Their risk is more than three times higher than in Kensington and Chelsea in London - where people have the healthiest hearts, a BHF spokeswoman said.

Every year in Tameside there are 132 deaths per every 100,000 people, while in the London borough the figure stands at just 39 per 100,000, she said.

Ballymoney in Northern Ireland and Glasgow have the second and third highest death rates respectively, the charity said.

The figures, which represent average death rates for the three years from 2009 to 2011, showed there were 129 deaths per 100,000 people living in Ballymoney and 128 per 100,000 people in Glasgow.

Professor Peter Weissberg, the charity's medical director, said: "These latest figures expose staggering inequalities in deaths from heart disease across the UK. But it's unacceptable that people continue to die from heart attacks, regardless of their postcode.

"Coronary heart disease is not beaten yet - it remains the single biggest killer in the UK. We urgently need the nation to unite behind our quest to fund research to eradicate this deadly disease wherever it strikes."

The charity released the figures as part of its Fight For Every Heartbeat campaign.